Latino Daily News

REPORT: Chapo Guzman Paid $250,000 for Execution of U.S. Based Drug Smuggler

Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman’s Sinaloa cartel paid $250,000 to have a U.S. drug trafficker kidnapped in Texas and brought to Mexico for execution, according to court documents seen by EFE.

Sergio Saucedo, 30, was grabbed from his home in Horizon City, west of El Paso, on Sept. 3, 2009.

He was found dead five days later in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, just across the Rio Grande from El Paso.

Saucedo’s hands had been severed, indicating that he was killed for having ripped off the Sinaloa outfit, according to the file for case EP-11CR-2817-FM, being heard by a U.S. federal court in Texas.

Defendants Cesar Piñeda, Francisco Javier Pulido and Carlos Cuellar received $250,000 from the cartel for delivering Saucedo, the file states.

Prosecutors in the Mexican state of Chihuahua are prosecuting three other men in connection with the crime, which was apparently based on suspicions that Saucedo stole a consignment of marijuana.

The reputed Sinaloa cartel boss in Juarez, Gabino Salas Valenciano, routinely turned to Americans involved in drug and gun-running to act as debt collectors and enforcers north of the border, the federal case file says.

Chapo Guzman was apprehended earlier this year after more than 13 years on the run.